


november rain

by 23suh



Series: it was always you [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Other, Pining, hope it's uh. cool, idk this is my first fic lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:07:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23342980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/23suh/pseuds/23suh
Summary: After all this time, his heart still aches the same.The feelings that encroached his life drenched him like a storm; Renjun had known Jeno for six entire years, and yet, he still didn’t know if he was trying to find shelter, a solace in his tempest - or if he was trying to find the sun.He falls in love, tries to fall out of love, and ends up falling in love again; all with one Lee Jeno.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno, Huang Ren Jun/Na Jaemin
Series: it was always you [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2023546
Comments: 21
Kudos: 91





	november rain

**Author's Note:**

> haha hello yes this is a fic. a first fic that was an accidental uhh something
> 
> it was supposed to be a university assignment, 900 words, fiction, but 3000 words later here's an angsty noren thing
> 
> i want to perish i think haha i Loathe writing i Abhor it
> 
> here's their spotify playlist: [noren's playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2g7Zu1FSbtUsPcinG2Gbai?si=FamrsRIBS6KrJC_jv08-ug)

After all this time, his heart still aches the same. The feelings that encroached his life drenched him like a storm; Renjun had known Jeno for six entire years, and yet, he still didn’t know if he was trying to find shelter, a solace in his tempest - or if he was trying to find the sun.

Jeno was Renjun's textbook definition of thick and thin since they were 14. They played Mario Kart in Jeno’s basement, made playlists together on Jeno's dingy little iPod in Renjun's bedroom, and went through hard times like the divorce of Renjun's parents, sitting on the wooden bench at the playground behind their school, Renjun sobbing into Jeno’s shoulders.

They grew up together, and Jeno picked up the pieces that Renjun picked apart of himself, making sure he was bandaged for a little while before he eventually took himself apart again, which Renjun knew wasn’t an easy feat. He was there for him. His saviour, the brightest, most charismatic piece in the monumental grayscale puzzle of his quiet life.

Jeno, however, was the opposite. He'd be knocked down one day and would get back to the tippy top of his personal skyscraper the very next. Renjun admired that, he really did, and Renjun was there for him too; but always asked himself if it was the same way he always needed Jeno.

Regardless, they fit well together, and Renjun cherished that.

High school was their adventure towards greatness, college was a quest for mediocrity, and now at 20, the both of them just live to live.

Renjun spends most days covered in paint, mothering his monstera pots and succulents. Jeno comes home from a nine to night internship, donned in black and white (sometimes navy too, ok?), the faint smell of coffee and printer ink lingering on his white button-down. Renjun’s art was a reasonably decent way of earning a living, and Jeno’s future was guaranteed to be a bright one.

Renjun was so in love that it actually physically hurt to see Jeno walk through the door of their humble apartment, a soft cheshire-smile on his face even though his day was probably spent getting yelled at by whatever geriatrics owned the law firm he interned at.

And their home was quintessentially them; paperwork strewn all over the floor (no, Renjun didn’t spill his paint on it, Jeno), specks of dirt from clumsily knocked-over plants, spare socks tossed about from tired nights of work, TV on a constant hum with whatever show was on the cooking channel.  
Renjun loved it, all the domesticity of putting on a playlist of their favorite songs while Jeno furiously flipped through pages upon pages on a case, and Renjun gave a blank canvas life.

But would Renjun ever confess? Oh, no. Absolutely not. He would rather just take the pain of a one-sided adoration over the pain of Jeno not reciprocating six years of anguished pining.

Both of them have brought people home. They’ve heard their fair share of ungodly noises and seen enough socks on the doorknob to know when to give each other their personal space, but Renjun wondered if it hurt Jeno as much as it hurt him that it wasn’t him waking up next to the other. He wondered if Jeno felt the same kind of pain when Renjun brewed coffee and plated up banana pancakes and berries for someone other than him.

He wondered if it ever made Jeno sad that he would never see the people he was so intimate with again and again; when the person living under the same roof could be his constant instead, a part of his morning routine. A forever kiss shared by two lovers, instead of a farewell kiss that held the lingering acidity of bitter coffee and a tinge of regret.

When Renjun was half-drunk, sobbing over unreturned phone calls, Jeno was always there with something Renjun was missing in his life at that moment. A new tube of paint, a glass of water, Renjun’s old, ratty moomin plushie that was shoved to the back of the closet, but the common in the whole equation, Renjun thought, was always Jeno.

It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for Renjun to seek alleviation from his feelings through somebody else, either.  
With each date he came back from, each body he said goodbye to - or had left him in the middle of the night without saying goodbye, or each farewell he had to reluctantly utter to someone he really thought would be the one, he prayed to whoever listened to him that someday, someday soon, someone would be the one to close the chapter of the Jeno saga - to show him that the years, all the time he spent longing for Jeno was nothing but an infatuation.

But it was when Renjun said goodbye to Na Jaemin that had made him fall the hardest.

Renjun met him at a bakery.

Bright eyes, big smile, the smell of roasted coffee beans and cinnamon buns. Renjun would stop by to get dessert for dinner, and he’d do the whole small talk thing.  
It started with quaint conversations about how Jaemin had run out of raisins and had to use, god forbid, craisins for the scones instead, or how Renjun spent 27 hours painting a sunset, only to realise his commission was for a sunrise.

Eventually, Jaemin was dragging Renjun through forests, flowers, and dirt to the top of a hill, where they’d watch the sun come up together, sort of to Renjun's chagrin about the whole sunrise thing, and share their first, second, thirty-fourth kiss.

At home, Jeno had noticed Renjun’s absence. The silence bouncing off the wooden floor was deafening, and the savoury end to their dinners instead of the sweet ones Renjun would bring back was a confusing change, but not an unwelcome one, he thinks. Renjun has been cooped up at home with all his commissions, maybe he’s just out mingling.

“So, what’s going on with you? Haven’t been home much.”

Jeno smiles. He fills Renjun’s cup with water. Renjun smiles back.

“Nothing much. Some, uh, developments, in the love life area, I think? Maybe, I don’t know,” he laughed.

Renjun looked away, but he felt Jeno's already bright smile slowly grow a thousand watts brighter.

“Shit, Junnie, for real? What are they like? Can I meet them? Can you bring them back here for dinner? I've gotta meet the person who’s been keeping you to themselves. C’mon, please?”

Jeno twirled his pasta, puppy-eyes in full effect, and Renjun let out a breath he had no idea he was holding in.

A week later, Na Jaemin knocked three times on their door.

“Injun! I bought pastries,” chirped a doe-eyed Jaemin. He plants a big, fat kiss onto Renjun's lips, runs a hand through his hair, and sets the slightly greasy paper bag down on the table where Jeno smiles up at Jaemin, offering him a firm hand.

“Pastries, Junnie? This guy’s great already!” Jeno chuckles, a ceremonious handshake bestowed upon Jaemin. Jaemin returns his laugh, and Renjun beams. The strings in his heart plucked so much they began to serenade him from the inside out, and for the first time, he felt like things were finally falling into place. Maybe he had found his remedy.

Jaemin would come over after work, bag full of the day’s leftover pastries in hand. They’d munch on still-kinda-fresh cookies, droning about their day-to-days while Renjun laid his head on Jaemin’s lap, hair being mussed around.

The sun shone through the big, splotchy window above the couch as he woke up in Jaemin’s arms, greeted by a soft smile painted by rays of light. ‘Here Comes the Sun’ by The Beatles was playing, faint in the background. Warmth, so much warmth was what he felt when he finally asked Jaemin if he could be his boyfriend, voice croaking from sleep.

“Of course, Injun.”

Kisses were exchanged. A “ha, simps” could be heard from Jeno’s direction.

Jeno still went out to meet people, he still brought people home. When he did, Renjun and Jaemin would take their leave and spend their moments on that hill, intricacies of each other’s lives shared between one another.

Sometimes, Renjun wondered if Jeno thought of him when he was out meeting other people, or when he brought them into their apartment. He thought about what it would be like if Jeno was the one he shared these intimate moments with, overlooking the view beneath them as the luminosity of the warm sunset metamorphosized into sheer effervescence of the bright city lights.

Jaemin was good. He was wonderful, even.

But over time, Jaemin became a mere apparition of what Renjun’s heart truly longed for.

The more Jaemin came over, the more time they spent together, the more distant Renjun started to feel. In his head, he began comparing the smallest things Jaemin did to how Jeno would do them and hell, it felt like such betrayal to Jaemin after all he’d done for Renjun.

Jaemin cooks great fried rice, but when Jeno does it, he cuts the garlic into slices instead of mincing it and leaves the yolk runny instead of a solid one; the way Renjun prefers it.

Jaemin hugs Renjun when he’s breaking down in the middle of the night because there’s no more red paint left and the commission is due the next morning, but he doesn’t hug him the way Jeno does, forehead to forehead.

Jaemin would hang the stars in the sky for Renjun, but Jeno was the one to turn them into the constellations that Renjun would look out for.

Jaemin was so good to him, and Renjun should feel happy, shouldn’t he? Happy that someone loves him so much, happy that someone would be willing to take him on a goddamn journey around the world with nothing but what was in their pockets if Renjun so much as hinted at it.

But Jeno, his constant, his supposed forever would smile brighter every time he saw the couple together.

Was it a smile that was obscuring pain, Renjun would think. Did Jeno ever feel the same way these six years? Does he feel anguish when he sees them together, or has Renjun never crossed his mind that way?

It shattered Jaemin’s heart when he realised that the boy he had loved so deeply would never love him back. It wasn’t the break-up heard around the world or anything; it was a quiet, amicable one. An understanding one. A parting that was apologetic, full of sorrow, yet able to be reminisced on by the both of them; one, his first love and the other, a beautiful learning experience.

Jaemin had given everything to him - mind, soul, body, and heart - but in the back of Jaemin’s mind, he was terrified that Renjun wasn’t giving him the same. In a strange, satisfying way, it was as if Jaemin’s prophecy had been realised.  
It gave him a sense of relief to know that although it had to end, and although he hurt like crazy, it was a peaceful ending now rather than a less-than-peaceful one in the future.

They shared their last kiss, another farewell one, Renjun thought. This one hurt the most, but it wasn’t because their relationship had ended; it was because the thought of loving Jaemin was more painful than the thought of letting Jeno go.

“I hope Jeno sees what I see, Renjun. He’d be a lucky man.”

And as the door closed, it opened again mere moments later.

“Man, Mr. Lee gave me hell today, Junnie. Do you think I care,” Jeno paused to rip off his tie, discarding it onto the dining table. He tipped a little bit of water from his bottle into Renjun’s monstera pot. He hadn’t noticed Renjun’s fetal position on the couch yet.

“If your wife spends too much time watching Love Island? I don’t care. I literally do not give one single shit if you think she’s living in a fantasy because she wants to put on a bikini and go to Mykonos. Go take your wife to a goddamn private island, put on a British accent, seduce her, and give us all a week off. You win, we win, right?”

He waved his hands frantically, grabbing a carton of chocolate milk from the fridge.

“You want chocolate milk, Junnie?”

The lack of response from Renjun prompted him to glance up, being graced by Renjun’s attempts at smothering himself with three large blankets, muffled sniffles coming from underneath.

“Hey, what happened? Are you alright? I saw Jaemin walk out, did he do something?”

Renjun sniffled once again. Jeno grew angrier, desperate.

“Huang, you better tell me what happened. If he did anything to hurt you, physical, emotional, whatever it is, Jun, fuck, I swear to god -”

“We broke up.”

“I, uh. Oh.”

Jeno clasped his hands together and breathed out. He knew Renjun well enough to know that there wasn’t an “I'm sorry,” or a “It’s gonna be alright, Junnie!” to fix it this time, and he knew damn well that Renjun didn’t owe him an explanation until he was ready.

Jeno scooped Renjun’s small frame up, plopped him onto his bed, and crawled in. He placed his forehead onto Renjun’s, slowly stroking his back.

No words needed to be said by either of them, but only one of them realised the gravity of the situation of what had just happened.

Outside was a torrent of rain, streaming down. Heavy, melancholic, persistent.

Renjun's head was pounding when he woke up, but he woke up laying on top of Jeno’s chest, his arms wrapped around him like a protective shield. It was still pouring. He poked Jeno’s cheek.

“Morning,” whispered Renjun. He burrowed deeper into Jeno's arms.

“Good morning, Junnie,” whispered Jeno back.

Renjun's heart ached, knowing he had given up what might have been his future - a good one - for an uncertainty in the form of Lee Jeno. It throbbed, begging to be released once and for all to the only person he’s ever truly loved. But could he? Of course he couldn’t.

“Your heart. Going, like, a mile a minute. You okay?”

He couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He was still somewhere in between sleep and harsh reality. The tears started to stream down his face again, a very involuntary action, as Jeno angled his forehead onto Renjun’s. He wiped off his tears with his thumbs and cradled his face as if it was a newborn kitten, fragile and meek.

Jeno grabbed his earphones, and plugged them into his old iPod.

That device had shaped the years of their youth. There were possibly hundreds of random playlists from their younger days on there, and Renjun was pretty surprised to see that it had survived all these years. But he didn’t question when Jeno slipped one side of his earphones into his ear, and he didn’t question when Jeno pressed play.

The first verse was a blur to him. The song was soft, acoustic, smooth. Familiar. Jason Mraz, was it?

Renjun's sleepy haze hindered him from fully being able to grasp the song that was playing, but by the second verse, he started to realise what was going on.

_“And baby that's a case of my wishful thinking, you know nothing.  
Cause you and I, why, we go carrying on for hours, on and,  
we get along much better,  
than you and your boyfriend.”_

“Jeno?”

“Shh. Listen with me.”

He pulled Renjun closer to his chest.

_“Well, all I really wanna do is love you, a kind much closer than friends use,  
But I still can't say it after all we've been through.  
And all I really want from you is to feel me, as the feeling inside keeps building,  
And I will find a way to you if it kills me, if it kills me.”_

Jeno looked at Renjun. Both of them were staining Jeno’s pillowcase with wet cheeks.

“Jeno.”

“Renjun. Huang Renjun.”

Renjun’s eyes widened. Jeno has never called Renjun by his full name. Not once since they met. Jeno held Renjun’s hands tight, like if he were to let go, he would slip out of his grasp.

"I have something to admit to you," admitted Jeno. He looked nervous, collecting his thoughts before he expelled them all at once in nearly one singular breath.

“I heard Jaemin. I heard him before I came in. I thought he was just being spiteful at first, a bad fight, but god, the look he gave me when he walked away was like he set something - or someone - free.”

Renjun inhaled deeply.

“Huang Renjun, you have no fucking idea how much I have loved you for all these years, you have no idea how much it hurt to love you while you loved someone else for months. To watch you lay in his lap, to see the look in your eyes when he ran his hands…. my god, his hands through your hair. I was so terrified, so scared that you wouldn’t love me back, Junnie.”

Renjun exhaled.

“I’m so angry I never told you sooner. God, I'm so in love with you, it hurts so, so much,” whimpered Jeno. His hands trembled on Renjun’s face, lips quivering.

“I don’t know when you started to love me back, but now that I know you do, I feel free. So free.”

When Jaemin had walked out the door, it was the hardest that Renjun had fallen. But not in sadness, not at all.

“I think it’s funny how you think I have no idea, Lee Jeno.”

Jeno blinked. Once, twice, three times. He closed his eyes.

Renjun crashed his lips into Jeno’s, his entire world falling into place after six whole years. They melted into each other, trying to make up for all the time they had lost together. The kiss was a little wet from their tears and definitely more teeth than lips, but it didn’t matter to them. What mattered was Renjun had finally found his shelter underneath Jeno’s downpour, and the umbrella was Jeno himself.

_“If I should be so bold,  
I'd ask you to hold my heart in your hand,  
Tell you from the start how I've longed to be your man.  
But I never said a word,  
I guess I'm gonna miss my chance again.”_

The rain thundered down outside their window. Their eyes were teary, but for the first time in a while, it wasn't from sadness.

Encompassed in each other's arms, rain their ambient soundtrack, the both of them were relieved; happy that they had finally found their solace in the other.

“Are you with me, Junnie?”

“I'm yours forever, Jeno.”

**Author's Note:**

> AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
> 
> many thank yous to obcc (esp shyra n mel), chloe best girl, ky, and everyone else i shoved this fic onto to help me critique it. thank u i love u
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/huangsuhs)


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